Visitors from Europe are quarantined, but not their diplomatic challenges

Monday, March 16, the deadline the International Criminal Court set for Israel and the Palestinians to respond to war-crimes allegations.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki (C) leaves the ICC at the Hague, August 5, 2014 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki (C) leaves the ICC at the Hague, August 5, 2014
(photo credit: REUTERS)
With Israel in lockdown, schools and many businesses closing down and people encouraged to stay at home as much as possible, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his interim government have plenty of work handling the coronavirus crisis. On top of that, coalition negotiations are theoretically supposed to begin this week, for the third time in a year.
Even though coronavirus is top of the news, and the ongoing political crisis is up there as well, Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Israel Katz and Justice Minister Amir Ohana will likely have to turn their attention to Europe in the coming days for some challenging events appearing on Jerusalem’s radar. In the meantime, any movement on US President Donald Trump’s peace plan will likely be put on hold.
The first is Monday, March 16, the deadline the International Criminal Court set for Israel and the Palestinians to respond to war-crimes allegations.
Israel already filed its legal opinion on December 20 – that the ICC does not have jurisdiction because Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and the Palestinians are not a state that can file a suit – and is not expected to take further action.
But many of Israel’s allies asked the ICC for permission to present their legal arguments against the court’s jurisdiction in the case, including Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Brazil, Uganda and Australia.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s rebuttal will come by March 30.
It’s unclear that the coronavirus pandemic will change any of this. At this point, the Netherlands, where the ICC is located, has ordered that gatherings of more than 100 people be canceled, which could be disruptive, but the ICC could work remotely or in small groups.
In Brussels, the European Council has decided that despite the spread of COVID-19 the show must go on, and they are holding a number of in-person meetings deemed to be essential.
Among those meetings is the March 23 Foreign Affairs Council meeting, which includes “Middle East Peace Process – Exchange of Views” on its agenda. EU member state foreign ministers will participate in the discussion.
The meeting comes after last month’s parley, in which several ministers asked that Trump’s peace plan be an official agenda item.
Soon after the Trump plan was released in late January, Josep Borrell, EU high representative for foreign affairs, called for a two-state solution based on past UN resolutions and warned that any Israeli moves toward settlement annexation “would not go unchallenged.”
Which brings us to the big diplomatic issue that seems to have been put in quarantine: The Trump plan.
It doesn’t seem like there will be more photo-ops for Netanyahu and the Israeli-American annexation map-making committee. In fact, key members of the committee, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and his adviser Aryeh Lightstone, are in self-isolation.
Of course, Friedman and Lightstone will leave quarantine in the coming days, provided they are healthy.
The real reason there probably won’t be any progress on this front is that Netanyahu and Trump are busy handling the coronavirus crisis, and this is not the right time.
Nor is the political situation on Netanyahu’s side at this time. If an emergency unity government can be formed, it will likely only handle the current public health crisis, and not set major, non-urgent policies, like enacting the Trump plan. If there is no emergency government, Netanyahu won’t have the votes to apply Israeli law to settlements, anyway.